Important matters

When San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution last week condemning the city’s former archbishop, now Cardinal William Levada, for a church policy barring adoptions by same-sex couples, the action drew widespread media attention.

But the news didn’t change plans for an official city delegation that traveled to the Vatican for Levada’s installation as cardinal and presented him Friday with a glass paperweight etched with the official seal of the city.

Now Supervisor Tom Ammiano, a gay Catholic who sponsored the Levada resolution, and other supervisors are wondering how such an apparent contravention of city policy could have occurred and whether any rules governing San Francisco’s seal were broken.

"I think it is a significant breach," Ammiano said Tuesday. "You can’t be cavalier about things like that."

…Newsom spokeswoman Darlene Chiu said the city’s official response to Levada’s appointment as cardinal was mapped out months before the controversy over same-sex adoptions erupted. Chiu said the gift presented by Veronese was produced by the city’s Office of Protocol, is typically given to visiting heads of state and should not be considered an official seal of the city.

Ammiano said Veronese certainly has the right to express his own feeling and opinions about Levada or anyone else.

"But this could be a breach of city policy," the supervisor said. "It’s going to be embarrassing for him as a commissioner. Are they going to ask for it back? Does the cardinal even care?"

It is good to hear that the city’s board of supervisors are concerning themselves over weighty matters such as a glass paperweight with the city’s seal on it being given to William Cardinal Lavada.

Though I find the following pretty ironic is that the city know for its anti-war activists that the motto on the seal says "oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra" (Gold in Peace, Iron in War).